


Enterprise School for the Arts

by The_INTJ_Sagittarius_Scorpio_Gryffindork



Series: Poison's Flower [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Female Harry Potter, Gen, Hopefully Actual Good OCs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-10 22:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10449036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_INTJ_Sagittarius_Scorpio_Gryffindork/pseuds/The_INTJ_Sagittarius_Scorpio_Gryffindork
Summary: A female Harry Potter carries a much more distinctive name.  Mrs Figg always wanted a daughter.  Because of these two factors, Atropa Belladonna Potter instead spends her pre-Hogwarts childhood at a rather unusual private boarding school for the arts.  Why would the Dursleys accept this, and why would Mrs Figg put the idea forward?  Well, you see…





	1. Chapter 1

“Petunia, people in the streets are talking about them. The Potters.” Petunia’s husband’s deep, solemn, hushed words echoed through the phone line, and struck terror right into the very center of Petunia’s heart. This was it. Her worst fear had been realized.

“What - give me the details, what is going on?” she gasped out, her heart racing, clutching the phone line for dear life in a sweaty palm, and speaking softly as though her words would be overheard even within the confines of her own home. Maybe they would be. Who knew, with those people?

Her one year old son Dudley suddenly screeched and flung something from his high chair in the kitchen, making her jump. Petunia whirled around and snapped, “Duddy, stop it right now!” The words were unduly harsh, unusually so, and Dudley’s blue eyes widened. Then he started wailing. Petunia immediately felt guilt well up within her.

Petunia believed strongly in the pursuit of happiness, but she knew privately that the only thing that brought her life true joy and meaning was raising her son. Vernon wasn’t like that. He had a job and a life outside the home. Petunia had one thing, and it was her son.

She let out an irritated breath. “Sorry, hold on,” she said into the phone line, and tried to pet her son’s cheek through his flailing fists. “Shh,” she said, trying to be reasonable. “Dudley, don’t cry. It’s alright.” Then she turned back to the phone. “Give me the situation,” she said in a deadly voice.

“There are people dressed like them, crowding the streets. They’re wearing cloaks in bizarre colors, forming little huddles on ordinary roads like they have every right to be there.” Vernon’s voice was thick with anger. “And they’re talking among themselves - about the Potters.

“I considered that maybe they could have been talking about another Potter family -” Petunia resisted the urge to scoff; well that was just like her husband. “But then they mentioned this Potter family’s daughter. Atropa. And it has to be them. I mean, what are the odds these people could know another Potter family with a child named Atropa? That… that is her name, right?” he added with cloying anxiousness.

“Yes,” Petunia snapped irritably, her mind racing. “Atropa Belladonna Potter. Who on earth names their child after a poisonous flower? Do you know what our parents named my sister? Lily. A nice, ordinary name. And she goes on to name her daughter after the bloody belladonna plant.”

Petunia was not usually one to swear, but this was a decisive blow.

She looked around her home, so traditional, so carefully preserved. Lovely patterns and stiff couches and fine rugs, little bouquets of flowers in vases sitting on end tables, filling a wide white Surrey suburban house with a shiny mantel piece and a lovely, perfectly kept front garden just outside. She’d tried so hard to keep all of her sister’s influences out. She’d married a corporate businessman, become a housewife, and had a son. But in just a second, those people could threaten everything.

Those humans hidden among us who still had magic. Those witches and wizards. Those freaks. For they were freaks, all of them. From their strange methods of communication to their bizarre clothing, they threatened everything that was good and ordinary about humans. Lily and her husband James Potter, they had no interest in being normal, comfortable, stable, conventional, and unexceptional. They had no interest in the safe, and therefore Petunia had no faith in them. A witch and wizard indeed. They would get themselves killed one of these days, and then where would their horrid, wretched little daughter be?

Petunia believed strongly in financial stability, in thorough ordinariness, in constantly straining for that higher paycheck or that next promotion or that new car or that perfect reputation. She believed in having a ladder, and she believed in climbing it, and so did Vernon. That was their religion. Their religion was their perfect box of a house and their perfect box of a car.

The Potters and their magical nonsense threatened everything Petunia and Vernon held dear. “Those ridiculous people,” she said suddenly with feel, “are going to expose us. If we’re not careful, someone is going to out it to a good, ordinary person that those freaks are related to us.”

“It would be the deepest shame of my life,” said Vernon in a low voice, as if trying not to be overheard. “It would be the worst thing imaginable.”

“Where are you?” Petunia asked suddenly.

“At work.”

“Are you mad?!” Petunia suddenly shrieked. “Someone could hear you! Stop talking! What are those damn people about?! Clearly the Potters have done something worthy of note and -”

Petunia suddenly paused, physically feeling the blood draining from her face. She was an idiot. Why hadn’t she realized it before?

“... Petunia?” said Vernon hesitantly, with the kind of characteristic fear of her wrath he had always possessed.

“We’re about to get some news,” said Petunia in realization, her voice coming out strangely distant and flat.

“News? How on earth could we get involved in -?” Vernon sounded bewildered.

Petunia glanced around as if a neighbor could have their ear pressed against the kitchen window this very moment. “Oh, Vernon, do use your common sense!” she scolded, her brow furrowed with worry. “There was a civil war going on in their world! Either they’ve miraculously destroyed one of the most powerful and evil of their kind in their time - or, or they’re dead -” Petunia swallowed, her voice trembling. “Or both.”

“But… Petunia, I thought we agreed that was inevitable,” said Vernon hesitantly. “That they knew what they were getting themselves into when they chose to accept their… power… and join their world’s war effort.”

“Yes. Yes, you’re right, of course,” said Petunia, troubled. “But I’m thinking of their child. That wretched little girl.”

“She’s hopeless. She’s been born into bizarre circumstances with strange powers,” said Vernon gruffly.

“Yes, but Vernon, don’t you see? She was Dudley’s age, one year old. And either she’s dead or… she’s an orphan.” Even Vernon Dursley went silent at that. Petunia was still staring at a spot on the far wall, troubled. She had the bizarrest urge to clean it. That was what she did when she worried - she cleaned. It was why she couldn’t stand animals. She was too selfish.

“I’m not having one in the house, Petunia,” said Vernon. “One of their kind. I’m not. If she’s…” He heaved a great sigh. “If she’s to live here, she can’t be allowed to become one of them. It would be nothing but trouble for her.”

“Agreed,” said Petunia firmly. “It was just an idea, anyway. Maybe… maybe nothing’s happened.” But that sounded foolishly optimistic even to her own ears. “Vernon, I’m going to stay up late on the front step tonight. I’ll be waiting.”

“Waiting? What for?” said Vernon, bewildered.

“For the news,” said Petunia, unusually enigmatic.

“What, you think they’ll bring it at midnight?” Vernon asked disbelievingly.

Petunia suppressed a smirk. “You don’t know these people like I do, Vernon,” she said. “That’s exactly when they’ll bring it.”

-

And so Petunia Dursley sat rigidly on her house’s front doorstep, and she did not move. The sky darkened. Ten turned to eleven. Car doors slammed, messenger owls - evidence of witches and wizards communicating with one another - swooped overhead. And still, she kept her back ramrod straight, waiting for the people who would threaten her family and her home. She did not move.

She contemplated something she rarely called it upon herself to consider - magic. According to Lily, there were two types of magical people. There were the type who had gone underground and hidden there, all nonhuman, their powers slowly fading away from being underground, being replaced by non magical technology. And then there were the humans and creatures who had stayed aboveground. As far as ordinary - non magical - humans were now concerned, those people had never existed. As far as the underground creatures, carefully monitored, were now concerned, those people had died out long ago.

But they lived. Magic kept cropping up in various aboveground humans and creatures; it hadn’t stopped just because the world had wanted it to. The aboveground magical people and creatures had gone into hiding, but not belowground. They stayed above ground, using their extraordinary and unhindered magical talent to hide in plain sight. They even evolved differently. They were all around us, those filthy creatures, and no one knew. They had their own aboveground world, one created as its own entity, completely non technological, within what Petunia stubbornly termed the actual, real world.

They were the only creatures on the face of the planet that no one, outside of human friends and family, knew about. The human wizards and witches walked among us, but had their own world that they always returned to. They bridged the worldly gap. Their houses were held just outside or hidden within non magical cities and villages. They traveled to the villages and the cities, yet had their own meeting places, their own pubs and governments. Each hole was hidden in a pocket amid a non magical place.

They had created their own all-magical families and their own society, but magic kept cropping up in ordinary people. Like Lily, Petunia’s sister. She was the only one cursed with magic in the entire family. She could have married a non magic. Some of them did. She could even have stayed a witch while doing it. But instead she’d chosen to fully immerse herself in her power, and gone to live in and marry into that other world - the unsafe, strange one Petunia held in so much contempt. It had to have been a conscious, rational decision. Petunia herself would have made the choice for no other reason. Last Petunia had heard, Lily and her husband had been living in a magical cottage within a non magical English village called Godric’s Hollow. Lily had married into an all magical ancient family, the Potters. And then they’d had their daughter. Atropa.

Perhaps the name was appropriate. She was an Evans daughter, yet one born with a sickening poison inside her heart. The odds that she would be born without magic, even Petunia knew, were extraordinarily low. Magic was recessive until it manifested itself, then becoming dominant.

Suddenly, the cat on the garden wall grew into a woman. Petunia jumped.

She had a bun of black hair and wore an emerald green cloak. Even had she not transformed from a cat, it would have been obvious she was a witch. Her expression was veiled, curious, behind her official looking spectacles. “How long have you been there?” Petunia demanded in a high pitched voice.

“Since this morning. You’ll want to speak quietly if you don’t want us noticed,” the woman observed. Petunia jerked her head around, but it was close to midnight and the street was black and silent. “I’m waiting for the news,” the witch answered enigmatically. “Like you.” Petunia glared at the woman, trying to hide her shaking hands. She was terrified out of her mind, and her husband was asleep upstairs thinking she was going out of her mind, but Petunia was determined.

This was for the protection and wellbeing of her family. She was protecting them from dirty, distasteful invaders.

The witch walked up to her - Petunia stood up, gasping - and the witch settled herself down calmly on the front step beside Petunia. Slowly, suspiciously, Petunia set herself down beside her, careful not to let them touch.

“Well,” said the witch, “I’ll give you this, you’re smarter than I gave you credit for. You’re nothing like us, but you’re not stupid.” 

Petunia sniffed and remained silent. They sat in the quiet for a while.

“Ask me a question,” said the witch unexpectedly.

“What?” Petunia stared at her as if she’d just grown two extra heads.

“I’m a teacher. A friend of the man who’s coming for us. I need my nerves calmed. Ask me a question and I’ll explain. Most Muggles like you never get this chance, you know. Isn’t there something you’ve always wondered?”

“... How do you hide yourselves so well?” Petunia asked suspiciously.

“It’s called a Notice Me Not charm. Not nearly as pleasant as it sounds. We cast a silent spell and the minds of every person without magic in the surrounding area - they’re all locked into the spell. There is no block for a non magical person. We train them to look at anything in the surrounding area that isn’t us or our place. This can be impermanent - enough for us to escape unnoticed - or it can be a permanent spell lifted onto a place that requires constant upkeep.” The woman smirked wryly. “It can even work on a faintly magical being if they’re not expecting it.”

“Like the underground people.”

“You know a lot,” the witch commented. “My name is Minerva McGonagall. I suppose I should introduce myself.”

“... Petunia Dursley,” said Petunia begrudgingly, refusing to look at Minerva McGonagall out of some weird sense of pride.

Just then, there was a little pop and a man appeared out of some weird teleportation on the street corner. Petunia jumped and shrieked again, but no words came out. She looked around - and Minerva McGonagall placed a long wooden wand back into the pocket of her cloak. “You’re welcome,” she said, and Petunia found she could make sound again.

“Never do that again,” said Petunia in alarm.

“It’s not me who doesn’t want to be outed to a street full of people I’ll never see again,” said Minerva McGonagall, standing. “Professor Dumbledore. There you are.”

Albus Dumbledore, a purple cloaked man with a long silvery beard and spectacles, looked uncomfortably from one woman to the other. They were as different as night and day - Petunia blonde in a Muggle housedress and lace gloves - but both had sharp glares fixed on him. Petunia was more unpleasant to see than Minerva. He swept his eyes over both women, reading their minds, and gathered together his findings. Then:

“Ah,” he said uncomfortably. “Mrs Dursley.”

Petunia stood slowly, her lips pursed in dislike. “Albus Dumbledore,” she greeted coldly. “Leader of the war effort. Headmaster at Hogwarts School. So that’s how Minerva McGonagall knows you.”

“I once denied you entry into Hogwarts,” said Dumbledore, sounding genuinely sorrowful. “I apologize. You had no magic.”

“... That was a long time ago,” said Petunia with dignity. “But you don’t seem apologetic in action. Were you going to leave the news on the front step while I was asleep?”

“... I thought it would be easier.”

Petunia barked out a harsh laugh. “Yes, it would certainly be easier. For you.”

Dumbledore bowed his head. “I accept your ire,” he said quietly. “Then please hear me. Lord Voldemort went to Godric’s Hollow last night. He killed your sister and her husband. He tried to kill your niece. For unknown reasons, the spell backfired and now Voldemort is gone and the war will be over soon. Now, is it any easier in person?”

Petunia teetered, going very white, and Minerva hurriedly helped her sit down. “Dumbledore, that was too much,” she said fiercely, but her eyes and voice burned with their own tears. She, too, had known the Potters.

“I was only giving her what she wanted,” said Dumbledore evenly. “The truth in person. You do realize you are now Atropa’s only living relatives?”

Petunia looked up, tears in her eyes but her face deadly. “And I’m sure you realize what my response will be.”

“To turn away the girl. That is why I wanted to -”

“You are wrong.” Dumbledore paused in surprise. “You are wrong,” Petunia repeated, smiling in some weird kind of triumph. “Our response will be to smash all evidence of happiness, imagination, and personality - to stamp the magic out of the girl. For her own good.”

“That is absurd -!” Minerva began indignantly, but Dumbledore held up a hand, frowning at Petunia.

“Petunia, do you know why every person born with magic joins our world?” he asked.

Petunia glared, but at last shook her head.

“Because when they don’t, one of two things happens,” said Dumbledore. “Either they kill someone around them one day in a burst of accidental magic… or they try to suppress all the magic inside them, and die in a great explosion, destroying everything and everyone around them.” Petunia stared, horrified. “Boom. Shorts out every bit of electricity in the area, too. Strong magic and electricity really don’t mix. It can be synthesized, but not under those circumstances. Usually it is blamed to Muggles on a gas explosion. And the stronger the magical creature or human, the bigger the reaction.

“There is no way to suppress magic, Mrs Dursley,” said Dumbledore. “Not completely. Even those poor underground creatures accept their magic - it’s just fading away from an achingly long time underground. Either you accept that you have magic, or you die. Trying to kill her magic through suppression of happiness, imagination, personality, it will do nothing.”

Petunia was silent for a long time.

“I’ll take her,” she said at last. “But I will have to keep my distance, and so will Vernon. He will never accept telling her about her origins, for one thing. I can promise that there will be no suppression or overt abuse… but I cannot promise a happy childhood. She will not fit in. She will have no one. She will know nothing. I may manage to keep it from Vernon that she will eventually have to go away to Hogwarts. But that is about it.”

“And do you know why I accept that?”

Petunia looked up.

“There are the reasons I will give to the press. That this will keep the famous Atropa Potter from growing up with a queen sized ego and celebrity, etc. But there is a deeper reason. Do you know why Atropa survived the attack, Mrs Dursley?”

Petunia shook her head, wordless. 

“It is because of your sister. She did a blood magic ritual before the attack, an extremely clever feat requiring enormous bravery. Because, you see, she was found dead at the foot of her daughter’s cot. That was what was needed to complete the ritual. She died sacrificing herself to protect her daughter, your niece. She shielded her child from a killing blow, and thus died herself. The blood magic activated, and Lily’s love for her daughter rebounded the magic, destroying Lord Voldemort when he made the deadly mistake of trying to kill her baby.”

There was a heavy silence.

“And now,” Dumbledore continued calmly, “she will be protected from him and his memory wherever she lives with her mother’s blood. The moment you take her in, you protect her from harm. So here is where she must stay.”

“... Understood, sir,” said Petunia, severely shaken.

Just then, a rumbling sounded and a flying motorcycle fell from the sky. Petunia didn’t jump or shriek this time. Really, she didn’t see the point.

A man who looked like he had some giant blood in him climbed off of the motorcycle, a bundle of blankets in his arms. “Hagrid,” said Dumbledore in relief, “at last. Please place the girl in her aunt’s arms.”

Hagrid, the hairy leather-jacketed giant man, walked forward uncertainly, placing the bundle of blankets in Petunia’s grasp. She looked down uncertainly, conflicted, and saw a pale baby girl with a headful of jet black hair. Atropa Potter. On her forehead was a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.

“Is that where the curse rebounded?” McGonagall whispered, for she had leaned forward as well to get a good look.

“Yes,” said Dumbledore, with words Petunia would never forget. “She will have that scar forever.”

In the end, Petunia supposed, as cliche as it was, she did it for her sister. For the little red-headed girl who used to be Petunia’s best friend, back before resentment and differences had ruined it all. She choked back tears. “I’ll bring her in, then,” she managed.


	2. Chapter 2

Five Years Later

Arabella Figg bustled around her home, trying to fix everything just so. A little old woman, born in a rare instance to magical parents without magic, she had nonetheless overcome worldly prejudice, gone on to marry a wizard, and lived a full life. Her husband had died a few years ago, and now she lived alone with her many half Kneazle cats. But one thing bothered her, which was that she had never been allowed to do anything terribly important. That was reserved for people with magic.

So when Albus Dumbledore had asked her to infiltrate the famous Atropa Potter’s Muggle neighborhood undercover, and set herself up as a kindly old lady babysitter for Atropa Potter, seeing on behalf of Albus Dumbledore how she was getting on - well, she’d jumped at the chance.

Her house was freshly cleaned, the medicinal smell cleared away, and carefully decorated in a cozy way with hand-knitted quilts and family photos amid the warmly colored rural surroundings. She’d had her cats be on their best behavior. It seemed everything must be prepared. 

The doorbell rang and she hurried to the door, throwing it open with a wide smile. “Hello! Mr and Mrs Dursley!” she said warmly and cheerfully, like a doting old grandmother. “And this must be little Atropa Potter. Hello.” She bent down and smiled into the six-year-old Atropa’s face. She’d always wanted a daughter, secretly, though she couldn’t have children, and was excited to be babysitting a tiny little witch, especially one so prestigious.

Atropa Potter looked up at her quietly, whether out of shyness, reserve, or suspicion, Mrs Figg couldn’t tell. She did not smile back. She had long straight jet-black hair that fell over one eye, making the other almond-shaped bright green one seem somehow bigger and more disconcerting, more staring. She had a pale, heart-shaped face with high cheekbones and delicate features. Her body type was small and very slim. There on her forehead, half hidden, was the infamous lightning bolt shaped scar.

She was a pretty little girl, but was dressed in ragged, grey, ugly secondhand clothes. Unlike most six-year-olds, she carried no big bag of toys and items with her.

Mrs Figg looked up, still attempting a smile. The Dursleys seemed equally reserved and suspicious. “Well, I’ll get her to open up yet,” she said. “Don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll have quite a merry time of it!”

The Dursleys did nothing, but Mr Dursley shoved the girl gently in the shoulder. “Behave,” he said sternly, and the two of them walked away back to their car. Their entire tone toward both Mrs Figg and the girl was cold and snotty. They were even more distasteful than the rest of the people in this suburb - wealthy, certainly, but gossipy, grasping, and contemptuous. The kind of people who were new money, very new, and had perfect lawns and long rows of houses that all looked the same.

Atropa looked after the Dursleys, still hard to read, not getting upset as most children did when their guardian figures went away. Finally, she turned back to Mrs Figg and just stood there. She still hadn’t said anything. Mrs Figg realized she was waiting for a signal to come in. “Oh! Come right in!” she said, standing aside and waving a hand. Atropa entered, and looked over the warm and cozy surroundings. A fire crackled in the grate, and the entire room was filled with cinnamon pumpkin spice scented lit candles. Mrs Figg had just baked a batch of biscuits, and the scent filled the place, mixing with the other scents.

Atropa Potter relaxed visibly. Mrs Figg realized, perhaps she’d been nervous. But she hadn’t seemed any more comfortable with her aunt and uncle than she had with the relative stranger that was Mrs Figg.

“Let me take your coat,” said Mrs Figg, easing it off her shoulders and setting it on the coat rack by the front door. “Come right in!” Mrs Figg led her through the house and into the kitchen, where the biscuits were on a plate. “Better get them while they’re still warm,” she smiled, winking, lifting the plate off the counter and down to Atropa’s level.

Atropa brightened, a true smile crossing her face for the first time. She reached forward and took a biscuit, munching on it happily. “You like sweets?” Mrs Figg asked.

“I love chocolate,” said Atropa, speaking for the first time. “But I’m not allowed much of it. Thank you.”

Mrs Figg frowned. “No chocolate? That’s quite stringent for a child.”

“My aunt and uncle are like that.” Atropa shrugged.

“Do they treat you badly?” Mrs Figg probed.

“No. Well - I don’t think so.” Atropa made a thoughtful face. Then she looked suddenly with severity at Mrs Figg. “You’re not going to tell them what I said, are you?” she demanded.

“Of course not. Cross my heart and hope to die. Your secrets are safe with me,” said Mrs Figg with all due solemnity.

Atropa relaxed. “Well. What I mean is this. I have a nice bedroom upstairs. I’m allowed all the food I need. I don’t have to do any chores. My cousin Dudley is not allowed to hit me or push me around. I wouldn’t say they treat me badly. They send me to school. They buy me the clothes I need to remain decent and keep me warm. They do everything they’re supposed to do.”

“But?” Mrs Figg added.

Atrop looked away, uncomfortable, shifting on her feet. “Well… I wish they bought me better clothes. And more toys. Most of the time they ignore me and leave me to myself. They punish me when strange things happen around me that aren’t my fault. They’re very… sensible, and cold. They exclude me from things. Like today. It was Dudley’s birthday and instead of taking me out with them, they left me with you.”

Mrs Figg watched her with sympathy. She had the feeling that if Atropa had been older, she would not have been nearly so open. If she’d come a few years later, she might have been too late. Only a young child would be so honest. And the strange happenings… that had to be accidental, unwanted magic.

The girl must be taken out of this environment as much as possible - immediately.

“They’re always telling me to be more normal. And have more commonsense,” Atropa added, as if attempting to explain something she didn’t have the words for.

“And you’re not normal, are you, Atropa? You don’t want to be normal, do you?” Mrs Figg realized. Atropa paused, and shook her head. “It sounds like a very mundane life,” she commented.

“I feel like I’m trapped inside a dull little grey box.” Atropa frowned down at her feet.

“What about your friends at school?” Mrs Figg asked, trying to inject some cheer into the conversation. “Don’t they like you the way you are?”

“I don’t really have any, Mrs Figg,” said Atropa matter-of-factly. “Dudley and his friends bully me, so no one wants to get too close.”

“But you said -”

“I said he didn’t beat me up,” said Atropa, as though this were patently obvious and any fool should have noticed the difference.

Mrs Figg felt pity for the poor girl. No wonder she was so quiet, wary, and solemn. She sat Atropa down on the sofa with the plate of biscuits and put one of the cats in her lap. Atropa smiled, petting the warm, purring kitten, snacking on goodies.

“What do you like to do, Atropa?” Mrs Figg asked. “I like you just the way you are. I think you’re a very smart girl.” Atropa favored Mrs Figg with a genuine, true smile, which brightened her up considerably. Mrs Figg thought, if she could encourage the things Atropa enjoyed, maybe that smile could brighten her face a little more often. “You look much better when you’re smiling, you know,” she said, leaning over conspiratorially.

Atropa blushed and ducked her head, but she still smiled all the same.

“I don’t really know what I like,” Atropa admitted honestly. “I know I’m always talking about daydreams - things my aunt and uncle scold me for. They don’t approve of daydreaming.”

“What about if you could draw some of that? Do you like art?”

“... Maybe,” said Atropa, brightening. “Art sounds interesting. I’m much better at imaginative stuff than I am at sense-logic stuff. My uncle’s always saying that, and he doesn’t like it because he’s a firm director and he’s just the opposite.”

Mrs Figg became thoughtful.

She had a good time with Atropa, reading her story-books and feeding her sweets. When it was time for Atropa to leave, Mrs Figg waved goodbye smiling at the door, Atropa looking back over her shoulder with an unusually vulnerable expression of longing. That look filled Mrs Figg with determination.

She decided to go to the library and look up books on boarding schools that specialized in critical thought, imagination, and the arts. There was no rule that said Atropa had to spend all her time with the Dursleys - the minimum was two weeks at their house per year in order for the protections to stay effective, and they only worked until Atropa was seventeen. Mrs Figg had grown attached to Atropa Potter, and she decided to help that little girl in any way that she could. She’d never had a daughter, but perhaps she could have a granddaughter.

-

Atropa always began the walk home from school with hesitant footsteps. Then, when the shouts from Dudley, a massive bullying spoiled blond boy, subjected to none of her strictures - when the shouts of Dudley and his friends echoed behind her, she began running. 

Atropa may have been small and weak, but she was graceful and fast.

She sprinted away from Dudley and his friends, who gave chase and called jeers after her, her breath coming in short gasps. But they quickly fell behind as she out-ran them. She made it to the Dursley house a good ten minutes before Dudley and his friends did - and saw to her surprise her babysitter Mrs Figg talking to her aunt and uncle in the living room window.

She paused, her heart stopping. Was Mrs Figg snitching on her? Had she been wrong to trust her after all? She ducked underneath the living room window and crouched there to listen, curled up among the ladybugs on Aunt Petunia’s plants and flowers.

“Enterprise School for the Arts is a private arts boarding school -” Mrs Figg was saying.

“We don’t approve of artistry,” said Uncle Vernon, a massive mustached man in a formal black suit, in a stern sort of way.

“But think of the advantages. She would be away all year during the school year - up in London, so if something awful happened it would not be too big of a trip. I would be able to handle her during summer breaks. And Enterprise is extremely strict. Odds are she’d become disenchanted with artistry, and give up all her chances at daydreaming.”

Atropa knew what Mrs Figg was doing - lying to get her point across. But of course that flew right over the Dursleys’ heads.

“Well…” said Uncle Vernon slowly, “it’s an idea…” Hope filled Atropa’s heart, painful, expansive, tentative.

“I think we should consider it,” said Aunt Petunia. “Mrs Figg is correct. I think she has the right idea.” Aunt Petunia had never treated Atropa with the same suspicious disdain that Uncle Vernon did. She treated her coldly and disapprovingly, distantly, but she was never nasty or contemptuous. She was never the one who ordered the punishments. It made sense to Atropa, that Aunt Petunia would be on her side.

“Let’s ask the girl,” said Uncle Vernon at last, and Atropa hurried to the front door, ready to throw it open -

“Pipsqueak! There you are!” She winced as she heard Dudley’s gleeful jeer behind her, whirling around to glare at him. Dudley charged forward -

And the front door swung open behind Atropa. Aunt Petunia was standing there. “Dudley, no,” she barked, and Dudley stopped in his tracks. “Girl,” said Aunt Petunia, reserved, “come.”

Shy and hesitant, Atropa followed Aunt Petunia into the living room, where a kindly Mrs Figg was standing beside her thunderous uncle. “Girl,” said Uncle Vernon, “we are offering you the chance to go to a private boarding school in London.”

“It accepts anyone,” Mrs Figg added helpfully, “though end of year tests get progressively harder as the years go along.”

“This is a marvelous opportunity,” Uncle Vernon added solemnly. “This would be a great outlay of money for us. Do you accept?”

Atropa bowed her head, at least pretending to be contrite. “With all my heart,” she said softly. Anything to get out of here - especially if it meant being unusual, creative - anything. Atropa longed for something she did not yet understand. But she thought this might just be the first step to it. "Thank you, Uncle Vernon."

Uncle Vernon lifted himself up, obviously proud of his great charity, and turned to a smiling Mrs Figg. “Alright,” he said. “Let’s do it. Let’s send the girl to Enterprise School for the Arts.”

Aunt Petunia placed a hand carefully on Atropa’s shoulder. Atropa looked up in surprise. When Uncle Vernon wasn’t looking, Aunt Petunia nodded just once.


	3. Chapter 3

The school official was a woman. She came to the house in a formal women’s skirt suit, her hair in a neat coiffe and her makeup pristine. She was the type with the money to wear gold bracelets and very fine nails. She had a brown briefcase, and a cold but beautiful smile. “Mr and Mrs Dursley,” she simpered, standing in front of Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon at the doorstep. 

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon immediately looked reassured, Atropa uncertain and skeptical. Was this woman really from an arts school? She reminded Atropa more of Uncle Vernon’s clients at dinner parties.

They all sat down in the Dursleys’ living room, the woman’s legs crossed neatly in the vast armchair across from them that she had chosen. She sat as if she had a place of power. The three of them were sitting on the sofa together, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon a heavy weight on either side of Atropa. Atropa wished Mrs Figg was here. 

Dudley had thrown a tantrum and was currently sulking up in his bedroom because he hadn’t been allowed down. He had tried making fun of “the pipsqueak” for going to an “artsy pansy school.” But when he’d realized Atropa was genuinely excited by such an opportunity, he’d demanded time in on the fun and for once in his life, he’d been denied.

Here, Atropa had a kind of freedom. She had never been expected to meet her aunt and uncle’s high standards anyway, and so could go to such a school freely.

“Now, I’m sure you’ll want some basic information on the school you’re sending your niece to,” said the woman. “My name is Ms Cliense. I work as a speaker on behalf of Enterprise. To start you off with, here are some pamphlets.”

Atropa and her aunt and uncle looked over the pamphlets curiously. There were many images of what looked like a university campus situated inside what had to be downtown London. The inside photos were very modern techno, with gleaming gold lining. The photos of students mainly showed them holding glittering awards and achievements, smiling toothily for the cameras.

“Who are they?” said Atropa, turning her pamphlet around to look at a list of names on the back. At the top was the name “Fowl” and it had caught her eye - it was highly unusual.

“Our greatest benefactors,” said Ms Cliense. “At the top are an Irish family - Fowl. That is where you are looking, yes?” Atropa nodded shyly. Ms Cliense smiled. “They are fabulously wealthy,” she said. “Have been for centuries. They own several corporations and are great patrons of the arts. They give our greatest amount of money per year.”

“They’re also thought to be involved in mafia style dealings, are they not?” said Uncle Vernon sharply, himself a firm director at Grunnings in Surrey.

Ms Cliense’s smile was blank, smooth, and sly. “We don’t talk about that,” she said in her beautiful, tinkling voice, crossing her hands before herself. But she quickly changed the subject. “Now, onto the school. I’m sure you’ve already looked up prices; we’re expensive and I don’t need to cover that. I’m here to make the case that we are worth it.

“So let me explain Enterprise to you.”

Here, Ms Cliense’s true colors showed. She became mercilessly all-business.

“The students have nighttime online tutoring that they must complete in the essential subjects, such as math, science, literature, essay writing, and social studies. They are also required to complete nighttime online coursework in one foreign language of their choice. As a language is hard to learn just by doing online courses, they will also be assigned a pen pal and phone pal in their language of choice who is their age and trying to learn English. We let them figure it out on their own from there.”

Here, Ms Cliense offered an amused smile.

“As for the rest of the online tutoring, each student is paired with a long distance tutor who they communicate with through videos on the Internet on school computers. This is state of the art stuff; Enterprise is among the first to have its own educational computer system. The students watch the videos, and then complete the assignments and turn them in online to their tutor. The tutor grades the assignment and sends it back with notes.

“The students’ actual in-person day classes are all in the arts.

“Each student chooses four general arts, and four specific specializations in each art. They also choose two extra electives, and four specific specializations within those electives. They get one class in each subject per week, and devote the rest of their time to practice what they are assigned. That’s twenty classes, so three classes per day. There are no weekends, though after class students are free to do as they please. It is their prerogative to practice, and to do their additional online schoolwork.

“Enterprise accepts all students, but it has increasingly difficult end of year tests as the years go along. We expect high levels of excellence and achievement from our students, and enormous ambition. If you fail your end of year tests, obviously, you also test out of Enterprise.

“Is any of this a problem, Ms Potter?” Ms Cliense turned with her vicious sharp smile to Atropa.

Atropa had been sitting there in intimidated silence. It did all sound like a lot, and in a fit of nerves, for a moment she thought about backing out. But what was the alternative? Staying here with an even angrier aunt and uncle?

Either she could stay here, or she could go there and try her best and learn how to be an artist and good student. Yes, she would go there.

“No, Ms Cliense,” said Atropa quietly, staring the woman boldly in the eye. “None of it is a problem.”

“Very good,” said Ms Cliense, as her aunt and uncle straightened in something like pride. “Now, as to the benefits of Enterprise. There are no uniforms, and there is a fund for students whose families do not want to spend extra money on them. This fund is to be used to buy books - any kind of books, as Enterprise encourages reading - and to buy school materials for various classes.

“Enterprise is in downtown London, and students are allowed to explore the city, specifically with groups of friends, in their free time.” And Dudley wasn’t coming, so Atropa realized with a jump in the pit of her stomach that she’d be allowed to make friends. “We also have yearly school trips to various nature related places.

“Students have dormitories they live in, each student with a single roommate. There is also a kitchen and school dining hall, and those amenities are all included within school tuition.

“We start fresh classes twice every semester, so as you are a bit late you would just slide neatly into the second slot for this semester. And then you would continue on from there. Any questions?”

Atropa continued to be intimidated, and also continued to try her very hardest not to show it.

“Very well,” said Ms Cliense. “Now, as per school regulation, the parents must leave while the student chooses her foreign language and her various arts and electives. We do not want parents interfering with the child’s choice any more than what has already been decided.”

“But -!” said Aunt Petunia, leaning forward, as Uncle Vernon reddened in indignation.

“I’m sorry, Mr and Mrs Dursley, if I allow otherwise I could be fired,” said Ms Cliense wearily, shrugging. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon certainly understood that, so stiffly, they got up and left. Atropa watched them go with secret relief.

She’d been afraid her aunt and uncle would try to control her artistic choices.

“Now, Ms Potter,” said Ms Cliense, taking paperwork from the brown briefcase and setting a form in front of her. “These are the general subjects. You pick a language, four arts, and two electives. Let me list them off for you; some of our newer students still have trouble reading.

“The general arts are: art, music, writing, fashion, theater and acting, film, animation, interior design, architecture, and foreign traditional arts. You must choose four.”

Atropa thought about it, looking over the form intently. She could read, Ms Cliense noted, at six years old, and was awfully quiet about it. That boded well.

“I choose art, music, writing, and fashion,” Atropa decided at last. 

“Very well.” Ms Cliense took the form back and marked those boxes. “Now you must choose four sub categories for each of those categories.

“The sub sections for art involve: painting involving the abstract and modern and collages, painting involving more traditional approaches, drawing, photography, sculptures, glass blowing and pottery, spray paint and tattoo art, and avant garde art.”

Atropa considered. “Painting involving the abstract and modern and collages, photography, spray paint and tattoo art, and avant garde art,” she decided.

Ms Cliense checked those boxes. “And now for music: piano, violin, singing, harp, ukulele, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, drums, and bass.”

“Piano, violin, singing, and harp,” Atropa decided. Check, check, check, check.

“For writing: poetry free-form, poetry traditional, personal essays, non-personal non-fiction essays, songwriting (which in your case would be both alternative and traditional classical and jazz), fiction short stories, fiction novels, nonfiction books based on research, and biographies.”

“Poetry free-form, personal essays, songwriting, and nonfiction books based on research.”

“And for fashion: makeup art, hair art, nail art and spa treatment, modern clothing and design, vintage and older clothing and design, traditional clothing and design, and jewelry making and design.”

“Makeup art, modern clothing and design, vintage and older clothing and design, and jewelry making and design.”

“Very well. These subjects will carry with you throughout your entire time at Enterprise,” said Ms Cliense, putting down one form and taking up another. “And so will these - your electives. You must choose two general categories. Here are your subjects: alternative healing, gaming and strategy, horror and history, psychology and life, personality typing, animal care.”

This was very hard. At last, Atropa decided, brow furrowed: “Alternative healing. Horror and history. So what are my sub categories?” she added with matter of fact expectedness.

Ms Cliense resisted a smile. She was starting to like this girl. “You’re getting it. Very well.

“For alternative healing, they are: CPR and first aid, homeopathy, massage and osteopathy, auditory and visual healing, reflexology, Chinese medicine, herbal healing, logotherapy, acupuncture, vitamin medicine, herbal healing, and naturopathy.”

Atropa frowned, considering. “I’ve sort of figured out the rest,” she said. “But what’s logotherapy?”

“Using happiness techniques to help heal others in therapeutic techniques. Logotherapy defines happiness as any one thing which gives our lives true meaning. Finding one’s purpose in life to heal one and make one happy, essentially. Becoming happy by giving instead of taking.”

“I want to take that,” said Atropa immediately. “And… let’s see… massage, auditory and visual healing, and herbal healing.”

“Very well,” said Ms Cliense, scribbling things down. “And with horror and history, the subjects are: horror film, horror art, horror writing, safe urban exploration, the psychological applications and implications of horror, safe travel techniques and the history of foreign cultures and foreign film, and political awareness as it relates to media bias and fear tactics.”

“I want to take the last four,” said Atropa, and Ms Cliense nodded and wrote those down. “Safe urban exploration, the psychological applications and implications of horror, safe travel techniques and the history of foreign cultures and foreign film, and political awareness as it relates to media bias and fear tactics.

“And as for language… I want to take French,” she added shyly, and Ms Cliense wrote one last thing on her piece of paper.

“Very well,” she said. “You will be assigned a French pen pal and phone pal, and French online lessons. 

“Once at school, you will be able to use your own money or the school fund to buy all art class materials, including in your case school sponsored trips to art museums and art magazine subscriptions, CDs for music appreciation and instruments for your dormitory room, book materials as related to your specific writing styles, and for fashion, new clothing, fashion magazine subscriptions, school sponsored trips to runway struts, and fashion photography. And, as I’ve said, any book you’d like.

“Now, here is your completed paperwork, deciding all this. Since you can apparently reading, I invite you to look it over, and then sign your name at the bottom of the last page. You don’t need to know cursive yet,” she added with unusual kindness.

Atropa looked the papers over, in quite an adult fashion, and then wrote her name at the bottom.

“Very good. As your aunt and uncle have already signed and agreed to terms, that’s all we need,” said Ms Cliense brightly, putting the paperwork together into a neat pile. “Let’s go meet your aunt and uncle.”

They walked out into the hall, Ms Cliense gathering the papers together into her briefcase.

“Assuming we receive payment, she will need to be at Enterprise on the morning of October the 27th. There, she will go to the dormitory front desk, give her name, and a key and a class schedule will be given to her so she can set up her things in her room and find her way to the dining hall for dinner. She will take a shower that evening, we recommend, as school starts the following morning. After classes, she will be free to explore London as long as she is in a group. Let me repeat, she can only leave when in a group.

“All clear?”

Atropa nodded alongside her aunt and uncle, her head swimming as she tried to remember it all.

“Have a nice afternoon,” said Ms Cliense, and she walked out the front door and to her nice, shiny black car. Thus was Atropa’s life changed forever.


	4. Chapter 4

“Goodbye, Mrs Figg. Thank you for everything.” Atropa hugged Mrs Figg goodbye outside the Dursleys’ house on the morning of October the 27th. Mrs Figg hugged her very tightly, and Atropa held on, unused to being treated with so much physical affection. Her eyes burned. “I think you might have saved me,” she dared to whisper in Mrs Figg’s ear.

Mrs Figg smiled and stood back to look at her, her own eyes also suspiciously red. “Oh, it was nothing, dear. And I’ll be right here waiting when you get home this summer.”

Atropa smiled, feeling a great, expansive, choking emotion well up within her. She wasn’t sure what it was. She knew that it was painful, and she knew that she liked it. It might have been a little like friendship, only something deeper and stronger - something perhaps like love.

“Girl! Let’s go!” Uncle Vernon called from the car, as he fitted Atropa’s suitcase into the trunk.

“See you later,” said Atropa and, excited, she practically skipped - half ran, really - over to the car. She was going on an adventure! No more Dursleys!

Dudley was standing by the house, scowling with his arms folded as he watched the goings-on. Atropa walked up to him and stood before him. “See you in the summer, Dudley,” she said.

Dudley paused, and then scoffed. “Don’t let anyone pick on you while I’m gone, pipsqueak,” he said scathingly. “That is my right and mine alone.”

Atropa smiled. That was Dudley’s way of saying “be safe,” she was fairly sure. “Of course, Dudley,” she said. “You can save up all the name-calling for when I get home this summer.”

“It’s time to leave!” Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were getting into the car.

“Coming!” Atropa called. She climbed into the back seat, and they took off for London. She watched the Dursley house fade away into the distance and felt like she was escaping - to who, or what, she wasn’t quite sure. But it had the feeling of a decisive moment in her life, a time when she could have chosen two routes and the route she had chosen would change her irrevocably, forever.

She could tell when they were going through the city, because of the sudden massive buildings and bustling streets and crowded traffic. They passed by very fine-looking places and graffiti-ridden places, ethnic food restaurants and boutiques and strange bookshops with X’s in the windows.

At last, they arrived right in the very bustling heart of London, the downtown area. They slowly drove up in front of the vast university-like Enterprise campus. It looked so different in person, so much bigger somehow.

Uncle Vernon spent several minutes swearing and trying to figure out how and where to park. He was not alone. Huge crowds of cars were coming in all with brand new students to be dropped off, and even some older students as well. They lined up near the dormitories, parked, and got out of their car. Uncle Vernon hefted up Atropa’s suitcase and settled it into a nearby cart for her.

“The desk is up there,” he said, pointing at the building up ahead through the glass doors, and then he and Aunt Petunia got back into the car, stiff and prim, and they drove away. Atropa stood for a moment, staring after them, deflated in some strange way.

Then she gathered up her nerves. She could do this! She pushed her cart with effort down the walkway and into the main dormitory building, up to the desk. “Excuse me!” she called from below the counter level. The older girl at the desk stared around herself, and then bent and looked over the desk down at tiny little Atropa. “Atropa Potter, checking in,” she said firmly in a small, determined voice, crowds of chattering people moving past her toward the elevators.

“Okay.” The girl recovered and smiled. She seemed friendly enough. She looked through her files, and took up a key card and a class schedule. “This is your class schedule, and this lets you into your dormitory,” she said, handing them down. “You are third floor, room 305. I’ll check you into my system.” She began rifling through many hundreds of papers attached to a clipboard. “Ah! Atropa Potter, there we are!” She checked the name off. “Welcome to Enterprise!”

Atropa pushed her cart up to the elevators, clutching her key card and her class schedule. She paused while waiting and finally got the chance to look around. It was all very metallic and futuristic, with gold lining instead of glowing blue or green. It gave off a modernistic yet expensive, made of money feel.

She got into the elevator with some other parents and students. Everyone else had a parent figure and she felt very alone and awkward in the ride up to the third floor. She got out when the smooth, cool, female automated voice echoed through the elevator, “Floor three.” She pushed her cart down the hall, and found room 305, sliding the key card uncertainly through the slot on the metal door.

It worked. The door buzzed and lit up, and she pushed her cart with effort through the door and into the room, looking around. The walls were gleaming metallic and glowing gold-lined, the bedsteads were square, silver, and low set with mattresses on them, and the windows were small and round like the ports of a ship, one above each bed on the far wall. There was a desk and a wardrobe by one bed, and a desk and a wardrobe by the other. The desk chairs were nice cushioned office-chair ones, and the desks were silver with rounded corners. The light fixture hanging from the ceiling looked a bit like a chandelier, but it was a weird cross between a chandelier and an art piece, and much less expensive.

Another girl was setting up her things on the other bed. She had a mass of curly brown hair and freckles on brown skin. She ran up to Atropa, beaming openly, holding out her hand. “Hi! I’m Susie!” she said. “Film, theater, animation, and Japanese traditional arts. I guess we’re roommates.” She shrugged, smiling.

Atropa took a glance behind Susie at her things. There was a collage of family and friend photos on the wall above the bed, a messy checkered blanket on the bed, cheap snacks covering the desk, and posters of Japanese animation and various bands on Susie’s side of the room. “Your family doesn’t have much money?” Susie guessed, looking at Atropa’s garb. “Mine either. I’m here on scholarships.” She’d leaned forward conspiratorially, brown eyes mischievous. “Oh!” She noticed Atropa looking at the box of fairy lights on the bed. “I was thinking we could hang them up around the room. You don’t mind, do you?”

At last, Atropa smiled. Susie seemed genuine. “I don’t mind at all,” she said, holding out her own hand and taking Susie’s. “Atropa Potter. Writing, art, music, and fashion.” She supposed announcing one’s arts was just what you did for introductions here.

“Atropa. Wow, what an interesting name!”

“My full name is Atropa Belladonna,” said Atropa with wry, self-deprecating amusement. “My aunt told me it’s a poisonous flower. Maybe my parents were trying to say something.”

“Oh, do you live with your aunt?”

“Yeah. My parents died in a car crash when I was a baby,” said Atropa. “That’s, er - why I’m not with anyone.” She was sheepish, a little embarrassed.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Susie looked genuinely horrified at what she had stumbled into. “Well, don’t you worry about a thing, my family will get you setup!” She took on a fierce determination.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to -” said Atropa in surprise, but just then a couple, an older brother, and a younger sister, all looking like Susie, came bustling into the room. 

“Susie, we -! Ah, you must be the new roommate,” said Susie’s father pleasantly. “Mr Harbing, nice to meet you.”

“We’re helping Atropa set up her things!” Susie announced. She leaned over and whispered, conspiratorially but with what Atropa was to learn was stereotypical Susie loudness and tactlessness, “Her parents have died and her aunt has no money. She’s not here with anyone.”

“Oh!” Mrs Harbing immediately bustled forward. “Very well, we came to help Susie anyway. Now let’s get you all settled. Come help!” she snapped at the other two children. 

Atropa quickly discovered that Susie Harbing’s family was like a force of nature. In no time, they had things all settled and set up among Atropa’s meager belongings, and had hung up the fairy lights besides. Compared to Susie’s side, Atropa’s looked feeble and bare.

“I hope to give myself a little more… personality while I’m here,” she realized sheepishly.

“Don’t you worry about a thing, dear, we understand completely.” Mrs Harbing patted her on the shoulder. Atropa was silently grateful.

When it seemed time for the Harbings to give their emotional goodbyes, however, Atropa slipped out of the room and down the hall to check out the bathrooms. There was one on each floor, presumably, and it was a long row of showers with curtains on one end of the bathroom, a long row of toilets with sinks at the other end of the bathroom. Near the bathrooms was what seemed to be the common room, a vast room which had couches, armchairs, tables, windows, and a television.

She eventually slipped back into the room, to find Susie sitting alone on her bed with damp red eyes. Atropa stood for a moment tentatively, and then said with careful casualness, “You know. You’ll have to introduce me to those bands and television shows.” She pointed at the posters.

Susie gasped and brightened. “You don’t know them?! Oh, they’re the best!” she squealed, recovering immediately. And then Susie, a born chatterer, started talking away and Atropa nodded in patient amusement and before they knew it a buzzer rang in their room and an unnoticed box in the corner gave off that cool, smooth, female automated voice.

“Dinner starts in the dining hall in fifteen minutes. Please get your food from the kitchens and then find a seat in the dining hall.”

Susie smiled over at Atropa, and even she seemed nervous. “Shall we go down together?”

“Yes, I was hoping so,” said Atropa, amused and relieved, and they smiled at one another. Then they grabbed their key cards, leaving their class schedules on their desks, and ventured out into the hall together toward the elevators will all the other mingling third floor students, of all ages. The older ones seemed calmer, talking amongst themselves. The younger ones seemed either chatty and bouncing off the walls, or silent and dead nervous.

They went downwards in the elevator, and walked out of the dormitories in the cool night air and across the way to the massive student’s building, which housed the kitchen and dining hall. Atropa and Susie followed older students, going the way of the crowd, as they amassed up the stairs and to the kitchens, where they found the only long, stretching line and stood in it.

They were let into the kitchens a few people at a time, and went from table of food to table of food, filling their plate with whatever they liked and trying any assortment of goods. Atropa tried a plate of spaghetti, a bowl of cooked vegetables, and a slice of chocolate cheesecake, and then she found Susie in the crowds. “Where should we sit?” Atropa asked, looking out beyond. A set of steps led down to the dining hall, where groups of students sat around vast metallic tables near upper story rounded windows looking out over the glittering lights of the city, the same artsy chandeliers above them.

“Luckily, I know someone else here already,” said Susie, and she brightened and waved, calling out, “David!” A handsome boy with messy brown hair and clear blue eyes in jeans turned to look at them. He was sitting with two other people, a tiny little Asian girl with glasses and a sporty blond boy. Susie hurried over to him, setting down her plastic tray, squealing and hugging him.

“This is Atropa,” she offered, standing back and pointing.

“David.” He grinned, offering his hand. “I grew up near Chatterbox.”

“Hey!” said Susie indignantly.

“Are you a first year?” Atropa asked curiously.

“We all are,” said David, waving. “We’re all second slot first semester students. That’s Rachel over there, and that’s Mackenzie.” Rachel was the tiny Asian girl, Mackenzie the sporty blond.

And so Atropa found herself part of a group. She sat down with David, Susie, Mackenzie, and Rachel, and they all started talking and having dinner together. David was playful and easygoing, Mackenzie earnest and a bit awkward, and Rachel was loud and opinionated but in the best way; she was extremely funny. Atropa found that none of these people, as snobbish as it sounded, sounded like children the way Dudley and his friends did. To get into Enterprise, she was to learn, you had to be highly articulate, mature, serious, and ambitious. She fit in surprisingly well with people like this, and that in turn boosted her confidence.

David was studying French, like Atropa, and he would also be in her modern abstract painting and collages classes. He was taking foreign arts like Susie, while Mackenzie shared most of Susie’s film and animation classes. He would also be in horror and history with Atropa. Rachel would be in Atropa’s spray paint and tattoo art classes, along with free-form poetry, while Susie would be sharing her alternative healing classes.

“So is anyone worried about how insanely hard Enterprise’s end of year standards are supposed to be?” Susie asked eagerly, looking around.

“Yes,” said Rachel, making her way through her third plate of food. “I’m eating my problems away.”

“I’m a bit nervous,” Atropa admitted. “But I suppose I’ll just have to try my best.”

“We’ll be fine,” said David, shrugging. “They’re just trying to scare us.”

“I don’t know, Dave,” said Mackenzie with his usual over seriousness. “Enterprise gets the kinds of donations it does because it’s supposed to be one of the best arts schools for young people in Europe. We have day classes and night classes at the same time, alongside practice. It’s going to be tough.”

“I’m here because I need to be,” said Atropa fiercely. “Because I don’t want to go back home, and I need to find some way to express myself or I’ll fall apart. So failing for me is not an option.”

“I’m with you there,” said Rachel. “Art has to be a method of survival. I need this because it’s the only way I’ll get the kind of career path I want. Sounds selfish and materialistic, but my goals aren’t really money related. And it’s what will get me through the night.”

No one else could speak to that. Atropa immediately felt a kind of kinship to Rachel. (Though David, she felt, was quite good-looking.)

After dinner was over, Susie and Atropa made their way back to their dorm room alone, Susie talking animatedly. Atropa slowly waded her way into more talkative waters, listening and making the occasional comment. Susie let Atropa take a shower first while she herself started a letter all about her first week to her Mum and Dad.

Atropa stood in the shower - she’d learned how to bathe herself years ago, being mostly ignored by her relatives - and thought about her first day. She had a place to live that was nice, some fairly good food at the dining hall, and already a working group of friends. It seemed all the new students latched onto each other, and thanks to Susie she’d found herself in the middle of that.

She was thankful for Susie and the Harbings, very much so.

Now she had to look ahead. She had her class schedule. Tomorrow she would have to find her way around - the nerve wracking first week of classes would start.


	5. Chapter 5

Finding her way around campus turned out not to be terribly difficult to Atropa, who was used to walking home from school anyway. The buildings were clearly labeled, the campus was easy to move around in, and the classroom signing made sense. It was a big place, but she found her way.

However, after that she got to the classes themselves. There was no steady single teacher for a subject every single year; she had hundreds of teachers and each varied in personality and appearance. What stuck out to her the most, in those ultra-modern high-tech classrooms, was the class subjects.

In modern painting, they would begin by learning basic painting techniques. “In order to break the rules in art,” said her first teacher, “you must learn them.” So they would start out by doing basic realist paintings and collages separately - with the aim not of mastering these rules, but of learning how they worked. Only later would they begin to break the rules in more abstract and modernistic painting, and begin integrating colors and crazy collages together. 

One useful piece of advice Atropa got early on was to focus on subjects that mattered to her.

“Your pieces should always be associated with a thought or emotion that is important to you,” said her painting instructor. “The subject can be simplistic, or complex. But only then will you make the viewer in turn feel or think something, and only then will you be truly creative. If it’s important to you, it will be important to them - even if, as all art is, it is imperfect.”

That comment was very thought provoking for Atropa. She found the subjects she gravitated most to in painting were pictures of things she saw in society around her. She found herself fascinated by people - by the things they didn’t like showing to each other, and the things they didn’t want seen. She focused on distasteful images and garish, bright colors and sharp, almost cartoonish edges.

“You’re a bit abstract already,” her first painting instructor observed thoughtfully. And instead of forcing her to be a certain way, he told her to go with it. 

Modern art class was fun for another reason. David would lean over beside her and make jokes, or say bizarre things in French and make faces, getting Atropa to giggle despite herself. “Go back to your work!” she would tell him, but she’d be smiling while she said it.

In photography, they started out by learning basic camera structure, camera types, and photographic technique. They would go through a semester in each type of photography, from portraits to strange object photography pieces, macro and micro images. 

Atropa was absolutely fascinated by photographing colorful insects in macro photography style, but she found her favorite type of photography was when she just went out into London and photographed unusual people and jumbles of things she saw there - usually in a candid way. She started taking her camera everywhere with her, practicing a lot outside the classroom purely for her own enjoyment. The colorful homeless and trash heaps were two particular areas of interest for her, and she approached them “unusually fearlessly,” in one teacher’s words.

In spray paint and tattoo art, she had a lot of fun. They had fake rock climbing walls to decorate each day. She learned she loved spilling splashes of color, especially in pink and black shades - runny crying eyes and weirdly shaped smiles, cutesy designs around dark violent images. “You have a screwed up head,” said Rachel, but she said it in a very impressed way. (Rachel’s own art was much more sharp, defined, and angular, and had ancient Chinese ink painting influences.) 

And tattoo art was just fascinating. They practiced on themselves with impermanent ink, and Atropa became fascinated by all the various patterns and symbols and meanings one could put into the skin. One of her first for-fun books was in types of tattoos throughout the world. She knew she wanted one herself one day, that was for certain, at least one, but it had to be important. She kept a different impermanent tattoo on her skin every week, but couldn’t decide on a permanent design yet. They grew into increasingly complex designs, meanings, and symbols, and would eventually from there move on into making detailed images exactly as other people had drawn them.

In avant garde art, there were almost no rules. That was what was so fun about it. They just had to take an idea, and use some material to make something out of it. Some students took this as an excuse to be lazy, but Atropa credited herself as a little more ambitious. She would start with an idea, like a feeling of emptiness in her old life or the abstract subject of poverty, and she would make structures and installations out of those ideas using everything from wicker chairs to tin cans.

Her teacher at least told her she was a natural, which was nice even if Atropa rather felt she wasn’t.

She also started taking music. In singing, she had a soft, clear voice, while in piano, violin, and harp she over time formed a taste for fast paced, rather irregular music that combined elements of both classical and jazz.

They started off simple - learning songs from others, mastering various singing and playing techniques, learning how to read sheet music. She was taught everything from string jazz to classical piano. But from there they got to create more of their own music, and form more experimental sounds of their own, and here was where Atropa really thrived. She took ancient instruments and musical styles, and made something jazzy and modern with them.

She formed a desperate need to create.

This tied in with her writing. Three types of the writing she was learning were intensely personal, and in two cases positively musical: she was learning free-form poetry, personal essays, and songwriting. Free-form poetry was quite possibly her favorite class once they’d gotten down the poetry writing basics, because she hated form and structure but loved deciding which weird places a word would go and which bizarre line breaks would happen in order for her to say just the right thing. Her songwriting, meanwhile, involved the creative irregular rhythm she slowly crafted over time.

But in all three of these arts, including the personal essay, she was intensely personal.

Whereas in other classes, she was fascinated by subjects and styles, the readings and writings in writing classes forced her to focus internally - toward herself. There she found surprising depths of despair she had not previously acknowledged. Wells of anger, also. She quickly became more open in her emotions, between classes and friends, quiet but passionate and emotionally heated. Artists, she discovered, were not more emotional or moody naturally - but art brought one’s emotions and moods to the surface. 

Her relatives came up frequently in her poems, songs, and essays. Very frequently. She likened them to a dollhouse - perfect on the outside, but melting from enormous pressure heat on the inside. Dysfunction hidden inside function, was another way she put it as she got older. Another frequent topic was her longing to know more about her mysterious late parents, who had given her such an unconventional name and then died and left her to such a conventional family. Were they, perhaps, artists too? She didn’t know. “Everything about me is intuitive,” she once wrote, “and I didn’t get it from my extended family, so I think I must have gotten it from my parents. But those doors are closed to me. I’ve never seen a picture of them or heard a word spoken about them.” Her parents came up a lot as angels in poems. She used their names, Lily and James - all she knew about them - littered all over her earlier pieces of writing. Her songs, meanwhile, were often deliciously calm and creepy, focused on coming to terms with her past and her domestic present.

Meanwhile, she also learned more clinical writing - how to do proper research and reading and formulate that information into a piece of extended writing. Here, her knowledge of how to draw out a writing piece was put to the test. What was so great about this class was that she had an enormous project every semester, and so she learned and researched all kinds of fascinating things - from quantum mechanics to the neurobiology of music.

Fashion was one of her favorites. (Truth be told, they were all her favorites.) In makeup art, they experimented on themselves and she always went for the bold and unusual - weird eye patterns, black lipstick, purple and blue colors. She took the “art” in “makeup art” to its fullest extent. She, in Mackenzie’s bewildered words, “went for the alien look.” Together with the long straight black hair falling down around her pale face, this could create some truly spectacular appearances. Then when she got into clothing - and discovered alternative, urban, vintage, and eighteenth century Gothic ball gown clothing styles - she enjoyed pairing things together and going for the eye catching and truly bizarre. Her focus, nevertheless, was always smooth integration. It couldn’t just be weird. It had to be weird and also look good together. In jewelry making, meanwhile, she quickly went for anything glass and glittery that dangled, but focused on making her own unique and fantastical colors and shapes. She got ear piercings very quickly.

Nevertheless, they also practiced on other people - usually pictures and photos - and there was a set goal in fashion classes. They had to learn about complexions, coloring, face shapes, body types, and clothing styles, and had to fit unique, formal fashion integrations for varying two dimensional subjects with varying imaginary specifications.

In her alternative healing classes, she worked alongside Susie and together they learned things such as muscle mass and proper massage technique, various lists and pictures of herbs and herbal tinctures and teas and remedies, and how to induce sensations such as music therapy and Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response on (and this was nerve wracking) real, actual clients. They induced shudders and shivers and melting feelings, increasingly successfully over time, using just movements, sounds, and words. They also practiced logotherapy techniques on themselves.

Logotherapy had been created by a Jewish psychologist who had survived the concentration camps in the Holocaust and gone on afterward to live a happy, fulfilling life. He insisted that hedonic pleasure - fear of pain and desire of money, for example - did not, contrary to popular belief, make one happy. He said one had to find meaning in life to be happy - giving instead of taking. And he encouraged them to in turn encourage others around them, to give and to find deeper meaning as the method to true happiness.

Atropa imbibed much of this early on, and she was so young when it started that she wasn’t sure how much it changed her priorities, but it must have. She grew up taking classes in essentially the psychology of happiness, and gained a fine understanding for what was and what wasn’t important in life. Her art and creativity, along with her friendships and her giving to others, became the thing that gave her life meaning. She created for others, with others in mind, to show herself to and comfort others or to show them she understood them.

Through art, she found meaning. Since she stayed for Christmas breaks, she also started a school charity giving food and blankets from the wealthy Enterprise to the homeless each Christmas - gaining the inspiration through her city photographs and from her time bored at Christmas without her friends around. Using logotherapy psychology techniques, she decided to “make herself useful.” She became compassionate toward others, always listening and understanding and motivating them toward better.

During healing techniques, fittingly, she became a more fluent and verbose writer and talker, from interacting with patients and using therapy techniques. But also just from being around Susie for extended periods of time.

In her horror and history classes, she bonded with Mackenzie. Together they learned the history of abandoned hospitals and asylums and understandings of the occult, they went on legalized and school-sponsored urban exploration trips through creepy abandoned asylums and hospitals, videotaping things and trying to jump scare each other. They learned about toxic mold and safe footing and night vision. They also took more academic classes in the psychology of fear and terror and how both could distort one’s vision and thinking. They watched foreign film, learned the history of foreign cultures, and took countless tests in how one safely traveled purely on their own with limited funds. They also learned about politics, media bias, and propaganda fear tactics from a very early age.

The academic subjects could get Mackenzie talking rather pompously for hours. Atropa was quieter, but she was also bolder and more fascinated in actual urban exploration, taking the lead with camera in hand. Her lessons taught her well - she was frightened of the dark, but she loved it. She refused to let her fears define her negatively.

Then there were the nighttime online academic subjects. These were a bit more boring and so-so, did not merit much description - Atropa found she was better with the intuitive and creative than she was with the logical and memorized rote, something that came as no surprise to her. So while literature and writing could be interesting, as could social studies occasionally, the typical class subjects and the way they were taught did not overly interest her. Nonetheless, she learned basic computer skills, ambled her way through them, and got good marks, though not amazing ones.

French, however, was extraordinarily fun for one reason. She got to try to figure out how to talk in French with someone who could only sort of speak English. It might be strange to call this fun, but Atropa - not usually very chatty - loved it. Because she liked talking about subjects that really meant something to people, and so she got to figure out how to say those things in French, and then explain how to say them in English. It was also less intimidating because she was talking to a child her own age. She experimented with different ways of speaking, eventually keeping up with her friend, Evelynne, in quite fluent French conversations over the years, even past her time at Enterprise through letters.

Atropa discovered she could compete with even the best of them when it came to attractiveness, intelligence, bravery, and creativity, and over time her self confidence increased enormously. She never became arrogant - not after her past. Rather, instead she developed a rather smooth, teasing self confidence when it came to others. She was reserved for a while, hard to read, and then the smiling and humor erupted at unexpected moments. She developed a teasing, laughing love for the romantic and the artistic.

Enterprise was good for her. It made her happy, her own person.

On that note, she used the school fund when out in London with her friends. Curious about the “any books” rule, she started burrowing her way into them and discovered a love for classical romances and interesting nonfiction books - the two most different genres in the universe. Over time, by necessity, Atropa became a good reader as well as writer and talker. She excelled at critical thinking and creativity of all kinds.

She also bought her own clothes for fashion, keeping her weird outfits and makeup and jewelry appearances into her personal life, and formed a love for music of all kinds and for CD and record buying for music appreciation. She also bought instruments, writing class books, and subscribed to art and fashion periodicals.

Exploring London was one of her favorite parts of Enterprise. She and her friends would spend most evenings bent over artistic instruments and computers in the computer lab, but would reserve two afternoons and evenings per week for exploring London together. Later, in her last two years, she was also allowed to go out on her own.

Together, Atropa, Mackenzie, David, Rachel, and Susie discovered everything from boutiques and ethnic restaurants to the bars and sex clubs they weren’t allowed into. Exploring London on their own, their innocence didn’t last very long, though their ability for independence was certainly extended over the years enormously.

Her friends and the Harbings in particular wrote to her during summers. But one person besides Evelynne wrote to Atropa during the school year, and that was Mrs Figg. Mrs Figg took a genuine interest in Atropa’s life, and Atropa responded in kind by letting Mrs Figg as the only adult genuinely in her life. She told Mrs Figg about what was happening to her, in increasingly verbose and articulate ways, and Mrs Figg encouraged, scolded, and offered advice. She was a warm motherly figure at a time when Atropa didn’t really have any.

She knew better, now, what that feeling was - it was love.

This was the basic structure of Atropa’s years at Enterprise. But certain moments and experiences merit a closer look. The following are a series of stories revolving around Atropa’s times at Enterprise.


	6. Chapter 6

One of the cooler things about art classes was that the students took school sponsored trips to art museums and displays.

For Atropa’s more traditional art classes, they frequented official galleries and other such things, but for spray paint and tattoo art they frequented graffiti murals and tattoo parlors, gazing over magnificent pieces and watching professional tattoo artists work around London.

Atropa always took her friends along with her on these escapades, and the five of them had fun together, looking over art, joking and talking and analyzing it together.

They would walk through the crowded streets of downtown London, that place they knew so well, David walking backwards to look at them with his hands easily behind his head. “So are you ready for a totally not boring day looking at art pieces?” He grinned.

“Only you would go to an art school yet find art displays boring, David,” said Rachel scathingly.

“Hey! I’m not a bad artist!”

“Actually, I’m going to have to go with Rachel on this one,” said Atropa, calmly amused.

David gave her a pretend wounded look. “Traitor.” Atropa beamed.

“David, be serious. I think this is going to be quite lovely,” said Mackenzie stiffly.

“And Mackenzie said it, so it must be true.” Susie poked her head in from where she’d been walking in the back. “Hey! Do you think we could stop by that trampoline park on the way home?” She brightened.

“We’d have to use the school funds,” Atropa pointed out.

“So? Let’s be rebellious,” said Susie with an adventurous gleam in her eye.

“I’m up for it if you guys are,” said Atropa idly, curious, and they all agreed.

They went to the traditional art museum first, and walked around looking at the varying displays. Atropa tried to be serious about her fascination with the art pieces on display. One part of art class was that they analyzed real life art pieces, and she particularly loved the artistic works that touched subjects no other artists would - from Yoko Ono to Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” Of course, her specialty was in more modern and alternative art styles.

But David went around to everyone, pointing at weird shapes and saying jokingly what absurd things they looked like, rattling the interactive items on display in the avant garde art. “I suppose he is interacting with it,” Susie muttered to Atropa, and they shared a wry smirk. Rachel was off to the side rolling her eyes and Mackenzie was pretending to ignore David completely, gazing politely at a Renaissance era realist painting with his hands behind his back.

Next they traversed the usual stomping grounds, where the magnificent graffiti murals were placed, and marveled at how someone could do something so complex and rebellious without getting caught. Equally incredible was watching a tattoo artist at work. The exacting precision of his steady hand movements on human skin was amazing.

Sure enough, after that they went to the trampoline park, using school funds against the rules to get inside. They didn’t do such things very often, and felt like splurging a bit.

They jumped around on the trampoline park, laughing and horsing around, knocking into each other. David kept leaping at Atropa, so finally in a tightly aerodynamic movement she jumped upward, threw herself at her his midsection, and knocked him clean over. Everyone laughed.

It was these moments when Atropa reflected on how nice it was to have friends.


	7. Chapter 7

“You’re a ridiculous girl! What the hell are they teaching you at that school?!” Uncle Vernon thundered over the breakfast table, standing up as he and Atropa glared eye to eye.

“They’re just teaching me modern fashion and art methods! It’s all part of the learning process!” Atropa snapped back.

Uncle Vernon in particular had not taken too kindly to Atropa’s new look and new hobbies. Instead of discouraging her, Enterprise had just made her odder. She was also, and she was sure this ate at both her aunt and her uncle, now much more high achieving than Dudley. Her Enterprise grades were excellent and she had won a number of awards in junior art, as anyone from Enterprise who truly took the work to set themselves apart usually did.

Aunt Petunia sniffed at Atropa’s appearance and hobbies, but remained silent and contemptuous, reserved. It seemed Aunt Petunia was always keeping her distance, holding back some feeling or some word.

“Come on, Dad. The pipsqueak has always been weird,” said Dudley, nonplussed. “Now she just shows it.”

“That’s not the point!” Uncle Vernon yelled, purple-faced, even though that was probably exactly the point. “I’m taking you from that school!”

“And on the way out, I’ll tell everyone including faculty that you couldn’t afford Enterprise,” said Atropa crossly, and Uncle Vernon paused.

He growled. “... Fine,” he snapped. “You’re staying. But no funny business!”

“Whatever that means,” said Atropa waspishly - it seemed her aunt and uncle perpetually thought she was a troublemaker, which actually wasn’t true. Later, she would discover strange powers, but even then she never did anything nasty with them and she mostly kept them to herself. Anyway, how could the Dursleys know about that? And she stormed out of the house, ignoring Uncle Vernon’s shouts to get back here, and down the street.

Sometimes during summer breaks Atropa just wandered, to keep away from Dudley’s sneers and jeers and her aunt and uncle’s disapproval, but sometimes she went to visit Mrs Figg. Today was a Mrs Figg day. They sat down in Mrs Figg’s living room, Atropa petting one of the cats in her lap, and Atropa told Mrs Figg despondently what had happened.

“Well, you know them. What did you expect?” said Mrs Figg, sympathetically but sensibly. “They’re just having trouble adjusting, that’s all. I think you’re doing quite well.”

Atropa looked up and favored her with a grateful smile. “I just don’t feel like I fit in here,” she said, thinking of the square Dursleys and the square homogeneous suburb.

Mrs Figg leaned forward conspiratorially. “Want to know a secret? I don’t either. So, shall we watch a quiz show?”

They enjoyed putting their feet up and doing this during summertimes, shouting the wrong answers and mocking the contestants on the quiz show. It was all in great fun. Here, Mrs Figg baked her chocolate sweets and asked her how she was. Here, Atropa felt she had a family, and was truly at home.

She wrote to her school friends, and the Harbings in particular, quite often in the summertime. They sympathized with her family dysfunction, and sent her little gifts from time to time. Uncle Vernon always grumbled when they appeared on his doorstep.


	8. Chapter 8

For her fashion classes, Atropa took yearly school sponsored trips to fashion runways for modeling shows. She went with her whole class on these occasions, but was still allowed to bring her friends.

They were older by now, highly fashionable and smoother, making higher level conversation, jokes, and teasing. They’d become a bit calmer and more mature. They sat elegantly, nicely dressed, in a middle row, talking and chuckling.

“Do you think it would be rude to catcall at the women walking down the runway?” David asked.

“Yes,” said Atropa fervently.

“Very,” said Susie, glaring. “Do it and I’ll slap you.”

“Or we could murder him in a really bloody way. It would get all over the dresses and be very artistic,” Rachel pointed out.

“You’re all so evil,” said David, smiling all the while.

“And you’re unintelligent,” said Mackenzie primly. “My safety is assured. You notice they’ve never threatened to kill me.”

“But I have,” David pointed out, irritated as always by Mackenzie’s smugness. 

Atropa was busy looking around quietly and curiously at the other occupants at the show. Some were from fancy schools like them, younger people dressed almost absurdly nicely, others were highly fashionable, prim, and obviously rich adults.

Then everything dimmed and the runway lit up. Atropa was fascinated by all the various designs and costumes modeled and put on display. But she noticed the careful way the models held themselves, the cameras flashing in their faces.

She would never want that level of celebrity, she knew. Atropa preferred a life out of the limelight.


	9. Chapter 9

The signs were unmistakable.

As Atropa grew, the odd instances didn’t stop happening around her - it wasn’t as simple as leaving the odd instances and the Dursleys behind together. When she got emotional, things around her changed color, shape, and size, sometimes vanishing and reappearing completely.

She would perhaps have written it off, if not for the yearly school nature trips.

Every year, Enterprise took all of its students for a week to a different natural wonder. The whole school went together, older and younger alike. They went camping in forests, white-water rafting in rivers, skiing on slopes, swimming and snorkeling in the sea, and seashell picking and tidepool looking at the seaside.

Atropa always enjoyed these ventures into the fresh, quiet country air, but she found something very peculiar: she could hear the snakes speaking to her in the grass.

She would bend down and begin talking to them. They would understand her and could talk back. It was incredible - she could have whole conversations with snakes. The strangest thing was, it was just snakes. She tried when she thought no one was looking, and could talk to no other animals.

Used to critical thinking and analysis, Atropa began to wonder. This snake speaking seemed to be evidence of a strange power. Could that apply to those strange, emotional instances, too?

She tried summoning up that tingling feeling consciously, and found she could use this strange power to change and shape the world around her. It could do anything, it seemed, in a never ending supply, and the closer she was to nature, the more powerful it was.

Mostly, she used this odd power in an aesthetic way. She made her surroundings prettier and more interesting, and used the power to help shape and color her art pieces, or to float art objects over to herself when she was all alone. She also began analyzing the hissing snake language, writing down in a personal journal a complete study of the language of the snakes.

Surely, she thought, if it was a language anyone could learn it. And she already knew how to study and describe language. But she kept one other kind of journal, and that was a dream journal.

Her dream realization came the slowest. But she began to notice her dreams predicting the future. Not in direct ways - but in symbolic ways. A painting beginning to shine in a dream could indicate an upcoming art award, for example. She wrote down her dreams in the dream journal every morning directly after she woke up, and over time learned how to correctly analyze them and use them to look for subtle clues and help predict events.

She had one strange recurring dream over the years, however, that she could never puzzle out. There was a woman screaming, a man laughing in a high hysterical way, a flash of blinding green light, and a burning pain on her forehead where her scar was - the scar she’d gotten in the car accident that had killed her parents.

The same creepy and frightening nightmare came again, over and over, but nothing ever came of it. This, she did not understand at all.

She never told anyone about any of these things, not even Mrs Figg or her friends. She was afraid of many things: of being thought mad, of being locked up, of being dissected and experimented on in a science lab, of being burned at the stake. 

This world had never taken kindly to people with strange powers - especially if those people were women. And she didn’t know if she was powerful enough to defend herself.


	10. Chapter 10

David was her first crush.

He was attractive, he was messy and carefree, he cared nothing for the rules, he made her laugh. He wasn’t perfect. She knew he wasn’t perfect. But she felt joyful and free around him, and having been a repressed and silent young girl, this was what she wanted more than anything.

She was silent about the crush, however, and might never have done anything. What could David want with her? She laughed with him and was his friend and admired him from afar, but it was he who made the first move.

They were curled up in a corner of campus doing art homework together one afternoon, under the shade of an awning, talking and laughing together. They’d taken their lunches in napkins from the dining hall with them and were having a bit of a picnic over painting together.

David had leaned closer, his eyes warm, and made a joke, and Atropa was in mid laugh when he leaned over and kissed her, fiercely, gently. The whole world seemed to pause, as if taking a gasping breath, and for Atropa everything was silent in that moment. When he leaned back, her green eyes had flew open wide with wonder in her pale face, dark hair long around her, and he smiled.

“You’re beautiful and talented,” he said, in a rare moment of genuineness and kindness. “Stop making yourself smaller for other people. You have to own yourself, you know.”

And Atropa was breathless, she was smiling, she was flushed, she was expansive, she was in disbelief, she was a million things. And for the first time, when someone called her beautiful, she believed them.

She never forgot that moment, and she never forgot David’s advice.

They dated for about two weeks, and they had eyes only for each other. They held hands, teasing and joking, and Atropa learned how to laugh while she flirted, how to be teasing and seductive. They had shy kisses under trees and sent each other love notes and made silly promises they knew they might not keep.

It was wonderful.

Then Atropa caught David kissing another girl outside the healing sciences building. She stormed over, as they gasped and broke apart, and she slapped him, angry tears still in her eyes. The world held its breath for a moment once more, and then broke; she stormed away.

That was what she got, she thought, for liking a boy just because he made her laugh and made her feel pretty.

She sat crying in her dorm room all afternoon, and after a while a sheepish knock came at the door. Susie, who had been comforting Atropa, stormed over and opened it. “What do you want?” she asked rudely, not letting the person inside. Atropa leaned over; it was David.

He was shifting from foot to foot, unable to look her in the eye. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I meant what I said. You were perfect. I’m just an ass. I just… you were reserved and you were uptight, and… and you were still great, and fun, and beautiful, but… I’m just an ass. I don’t know what to say.”

“I would have stayed with you, you know,” said Atropa. “Forever.”

“... I know,” he murmured, head bowed.

It was one of the last things he ever said to her. Atropa found it hard forgiving him. After that, it was awkward looking at one another, and the ever-social David drifted to another circle of friends. 

And after that, all her friends began testing out of the higher levels of Enterprise, and everything fell apart.


	11. Chapter 11

Enterprise got more difficult as the years passed. It was during these times that Atropa reminded herself she stayed because she had to, because it was what kept her happy - and besides, look at what the alternative was.

But not everyone was as motivated as her.

It started with Susie. She came up to them in the dining hall at the beginning of one year, looking extremely upset. 

The headmaster was making an announcement. He tapped his glass with a spoon and cleared his throat. “The Fowls, our enormous benefactors,” he said in a deep voice, “have just had a son, Artemis.”

“Artemis? What kind of a name is that?” Rachel asked. “Do they hate this kid?”

“Really, it’s like the Fowls are royalty or something,” said Atropa irritably, brushing off the news in her nine year old way. There were more important things at hand. “Susie, what is it?”

“They wouldn’t give me my class schedule,” Susie murmured, tears in her eyes. “I’ve tested out of Enterprise.”

They gasped. Atropa stood up in her seat, putting a hand on Susie’s shoulder. Then, when she saw how distraught Susie truly was, she moved forward to hug her.

Later, Atropa helped Susie pack with a sense of false calm. She’d never faced Enterprise without Susie, and she would miss her friend dearly.

“We’ll still write to each other,” said Susie in a false cheerful voice, tears in her eyes as she packed. “And talk on the phone. All the time.”

“Yeah. Of course,” said Atropa, also pretending to be calm. They looked at each other - and each moved forward to give the other a fierce hug.

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” Atropa said in her ear. “Thank you.”

She heard the smile in Susie’s voice. “Oh, it was nothing, dear,” said her friend, warm and motherly to the end.

And Susie was as good as her word. They did write to each other, and keep in touch. Still, Atropa had learned after that - sometimes friendships just faded away.

With David, who also tested out, obviously there was no further contact. But Mackenzie didn’t keep in touch after he tested out either. Atropa suspected he was ashamed. Last she heard, he’d had a mental breakdown and had to be temporarily hospitalized. She sent him a get well card and a letter, which he never returned.

Soon only Atropa and Rachel were left. They sat at the dining hall table, looking at the empty seats.

“It’s because we needed it,” said Rachel at last. “You can’t get so attached. You know that, don’t you?”

“... Yes,” said Atropa sadly. “But I still miss them.”

“... Yeah,” Rachel admitted. “Me too.”

Rachel became Atropa’s closest friend. By their last year, they were a pair of seasoned and serious best friends who moved calmly through Enterprise together. Atropa’s new roommate was a younger student, who she took under her wing and mentored. She also kept in long distance contact with Susie, Evelynne, and Mrs Figg.

By the time she was almost eleven, she was a bit heartsick and disenchanted. When she came for her very last dinner at the dining hall in Enterprise’s primary school sector, she was musty in the head because she was still caught up in a dream she’d had last night, of a quill and ink and a purple seal looming up before her.

The dream had carried the feeling of something new, but of what she could not decipher.

“You have all made it very far, during your time at Enterprise, especially our final year students,” said the headmaster. “I congratulate you on your progress. Those of you who have tested on to move into our secondary school sector are especially blessed.”

Rachel and Atropa looked at each other and nodded once; they’d both made it in.

“Thank you. I hope you have enjoyed your time at Enterprise,” said the headmaster, sitting down, and everyone broke into applause.

“Great,” Atropa sighed, going back defeatedly to her meal.

“What is it?” Rachel asked.

“Another summer with the Dursleys before secondary school. How fun,” Atropa muttered, taking a bite of dessert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ends book one of the series. Book two should begin posting shortly.


	12. Chapter 12

Author's Note:

Book Two is up on my author page.


End file.
